Karl Stern German-Canadian neurologist

Neurologist

A neurologist is a physician who specializes in neurology, and is trained to investigate, or diagnose and treat neurological disorders.Neurology is the medical specialty related to the human nervous system. The nervous system encompasses the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nerves. A specialist...

  and psychiatrist

Psychiatrist

A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. All psychiatrists are trained in diagnostic evaluation and in psychotherapy...

, and Jewish convert to the Catholic Church. Stern is best known for his account of his conversion in Pillar of Fire (1951).

Life

Stern was born in the small town Cham

Cham, Germany

Cham is the capital of the district of Cham in the Upper Palatinate in Bavaria in Germany.-Location:Cham lies within the Cham-Further lowland, which is bordered on the south by the Bavarian Forest and on the north by the Oberpfälzer Wald...

 in Bavaria

Bavaria

Bavaria, formally the Free State of Bavaria is a state of Germany, located in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the largest state by area, forming almost 20% of the total land area of Germany...

 in 1906, to socially assimilated Jewish parents. There was no synagogue or rabbi in the town, and although regular services

Jewish services

Jewish prayer are the prayer recitations that form part of the observance of Judaism. These prayers, often with instructions and commentary, are found in the siddur, the traditional Jewish prayer book....

 and classes were held under the direction of a cantor

Hazzan

A hazzan or chazzan is a Jewish cantor, a musician trained in the vocal arts who helps lead the congregation in songful prayer.There are many rules relating to how a cantor should lead services, but the idea of a cantor as a paid professional does not exist in classical rabbinic sources...

, Stern's religious education was patchy. As a teenager he sought to re-engage with the Jewish faith, and began attending an Orthodox synagogue, but he soon became an atheist Zionist.

He studied medicine at the Universities of Munich, Berlin and Frankfurt, and came to specialize in psychiatric research. In the course of undergoing psychoanalysis himself, he regained belief in God and returned to Orthodox Jewish

Orthodox Judaism

Orthodox Judaism , is the approach to Judaism which adheres to the traditional interpretation and application of the laws and ethics of the Torah as legislated in the Talmudic texts by the Sanhedrin and subsequently developed and applied by the later authorities known as the Gaonim, Rishonim, and...

 worship. He emigrated from Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

 in 1936, finding work in neurological research in England, and later as lecturer in neuropathology

Neuropathology

Neuropathology is the study of disease of nervous system tissue, usually in the form of either small surgical biopsies or whole autopsy brains. Neuropathology is a subspecialty of anatomic pathology, neurology, and neurosurgery...

 and assistant neuropathologist at the Montreal Neurological Institute

Montreal Neurological Institute

The Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital is an academic medical centre dedicated to neuroscience research, training and clinical care. The Institute is part of McGill University and the Hospital is one of the five teaching hospitals of the McGill University Health Centre, in Montreal,...

, under Wilder Penfield

Wilder Penfield

Wilder Graves Penfield, OM, CC, CMG, FRS was an American born Canadian neurosurgeon. During his life he was called "the greatest living Canadian"...

.

In 1943, after much soul-searching, and ultimately influenced by encounters with Jacques Maritain

Jacques Maritain

Jacques Maritain was a French Catholic philosopher. Raised as a Protestant, he converted to Catholicism in 1906. An author of more than 60 books, he helped to revive St. Thomas Aquinas for modern times and is a prominent drafter of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights...

 and Dorothy Day

Dorothy Day

Dorothy Day was an American journalist, social activist and devout Catholic convert; she advocated the Catholic economic theory of Distributism. She was also considered to be an anarchist, and did not hesitate to use the term...

, Stern received baptism as a Catholic

Roman Catholic Church

The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...

.

Books

• Pillar of Fire. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1951.

Much reprinted, most recently by Urbi Et Orbi Communications, 2001. ISBN 1884660126.

French translation, Le buisson ardent. Paris: Seuil, 1951.

Dutch translation, De vuurzuil. Antwerp: Sheed and Ward, 1951.

German translation, Die Feuerwolke. Salzburg: Müller, 1954.

• The Third Revolution: A Study of Psychiatry and Religion. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1954.

French translation, La troisième révolution: essai sur la psychanalyse et la religion. Paris: Du Seuil, 1955.

German translation, Die dritte Revolution: Psychiatrie und Religion. Salzburg: Otto Müller, 1956.

Dutch translation, De derde revolutie: psychiatrie en religie. Utrecht: De Fontein, 1958.

• Through Dooms of Love: a novel. New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1960.
• The Flight from Woman
  The Flight from Woman
  The Flight from Woman is a book by psychiatrist Karl Stern, first published in 1965 by Farrar, Strauss and Giroux. It is described as a study of the polarity of the sexes as reflected in the conflict between two modes of knowledge - scientific or rational, as contrasted with intuitive or poetic...
  
  . New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1965. :Reissued New York: Paragon House, 1985. ISBN 0913757519.

German translation, Die Flucht vor dem Weib: zur Pathologie des Zeitgeistes. Salzburg: Otto Müller, 1968.

French translation, Refus de la femme. Montréal: Éditions HMH, 1968.

• Love and Success, and other essays. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1975. ISBN 0374192588.

Other writings

• Preface to Henri Gratton, Psychanalyses d'hier et d'aujourd'hui comme thérapeutiques, sciences et philosophies: introduction aux problèmes de la psychologie des profondeurs. Paris: Cerf, 1955.
• Essay on St Thérèse of Lisieux, in Saints for Now, edited by Clare Boothe Luce
  Clare Boothe Luce
  Clare Boothe Luce was an American playwright, editor, journalist, ambassador, socialite and U.S. Congresswoman, representing the state of Connecticut.-Early life:...
  
  . London and New York: Sheed & Ward, 1952. Reprinted San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1993. ISBN 0898704766.

Works about Stern

• Bernard Heller, Epistle to an Apostate. New York: Bookman's Press, 1951.
• "Karl Stern", in F. Lelotte (ed.), Convertis du XXème siècle. Vol. 2. Paris and Tournai: Casterman; Brussels: Foyer Notre-Dame, 1954. Reprinted 1963.
• "Karl Stern", in International Biographical Dictionary of Central European Émigrés 1933-1945. Vol. 2, part 2. Edited by Werner Röder and Herbert A. Strauss. Munich: Saur, 1983.
• "Karl Stern", in Charles Patrick Connor, Classic Catholic Converts. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2001. ISBN 0898707870
• "Karl Stern", in Lorene Hanley Duquin, A Century of Catholic Converts. Our Sunday Visitor, 2003. ISBN 1931709017.
• Robert B. McFarland, "Elective Divinities: Exile and Religious Conversion in Alfred Döblin's 'Schicksalsreise' (Destiny's Journey), Karl Jakob Hirsch's 'Heimkehr zu Gott' (Return to God), and Karl Stern's 'The Pillar of Fire'". Christianity & Literature 57:1 (2007), pp. 35–61.